Generation next takes thrill ride on Whistler's Dave Murray Downhill

WHISTLER, B.C. — When they hit the bottom Saturday, after plunging at up to 90 mph down 2 miles of terrain pocked with nasty natural features called "Toilet Bowl," "Weasel" and "Sewer," the world's greatest ski racers will near the finish of the Dave Murray Downhill course and two things will happen.

They will hear the mighty roar of an Olympic crowd, reminding them why they risk life and limb to fly fast down mountains. And they will catch some serious showboat air off a jump called "Murr's Hope."

The latter — and in fact this entire course — is named in honor of Dave Murray, a former member of the famed "Crazy Canucks," a quartet of hard-charging Canadian skiers legendary for their fearless approach to ski racing in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Murray never won a World Cup or Olympic downhill. But his name, applied to Whistler's downhill course in his honor after he died from skin cancer in 1990, lives on as an inspiration to later generations of skiers — not just Canadians.

"I know the legend," says U.S. skier Marco Sullivan. "Just that they were ballsy. They were the first North Americans — or really the first other people in the world, really — to start kicking ass in downhill, starting to challenge the Austrians and the Swiss."

The group — Murray, Ken Read, Dave Irwin and Steve Podborski — were the trailblazers for North American downhillers who followed, among them America's Bill Johnson, Tommy Moe, Daron Rahlves and Bode Miller.

Their legend continues to inspire young Canadians, including ski racer Robbie Dixon, who grew up skiing Whistler Peak — and who posted the second-fastest times in two practice sessions on the Murray Downhill this week.

But nowhere does the legend live louder or burn more brightly than in the heart of another young Canadian athlete with medal hopes of her own.

Julia Murray, 21, doesn't have a lot of memories of her dad. He died at 37 when she was 22 months old. But she has heard all the stories about him from her mother, Stephanie Sloan, herself a world-champion freestyle skier.

His résumé: Total kamikaze skier. Fearless. Proud.

Many of Julia's friends know the legend of her dad through "a literal made-for-TV-movie" that seems to keep playing on Canadian TV as the Olympics approach, she says with a grin. She likes to think that when she clicks into her bindings and blows out of the starting gate in the Winter Olympics' newest sport, ski cross, that fiery Dave Murray blood is pushing her out over the front of her skis.

She will need all of that horsepower, plus a bit of luck, just to compete in the 2010 Games. Julia, who seemed to be peaking just in time for the home Olympics not only of her nation, but her hometown, blew out her knee a couple weeks ago, and had surgical repairs to her ACL and other parts.

She won't know for a couple days whether she'll be able to compete on Feb. 21 and 23, when the highly-rated Canadian squad takes on the world at Cypress Mountain.

But she'll be there tonight, in BC Place, marching into the Opening Ceremony and probably finding it difficult not to cry. Because for her, just being a part of the Olympic team closes a generational circle for Canadian athletics — and, in a way, for Whistler, a mountain town created with the world's greatest sporting event in mind.

The torch was passed, literally, from one generation of Whistler thrill seekers to another last week. When the 2010 Olympic flame made its way to Whistler, the community picked two of its most cherished residents to take the flame up the mountain.

One was Julia Murray, who, because of her knee injury, carried the flame up the piste above Whistler Village on the back of a snowmobile. The other was Podborski, who took the torch from her and skied it back down the hill.

"It was a pretty amazing experience," she says, describing a scene with 10,000 onlookers in the village below, waving glow sticks and cheering for the flame. "Steve was really close to my Dad. That just added to it."

She will root for the Canadians when she watches, on TV, the course named for her dad take its toll on the world's field of elite racers. Canada's Dixon is a solid contender, as is teammate Manuel Osborne-Paradis.

And the Canadians have gone to great — perhaps unprecedented — lengths to protect their home-snow advantage.

Until this week, the current incarnation Murray Downhill course has been kept off-limits to foreigners. The course hasn't hosted a World Cup men's downhill since 1994, when it was dropped from the circuit because of snow and weather problems. It continued to have those problems this week, when heavy snow and fog shortened or canceled training runs.

Which is exactly what Canada wanted: The downhill, the Winter Games' marquee event, traditionally held the morning after the Opening Ceremony, is a race that's particularly difficult — some would argue dangerous — to run on a strange course. Canada has kept this one "strange" to all competitors on purpose.

"Is it fair? Yes," says Marco Buechel of Liechtenstein, a perennial downhill contender.

"If there would be an Olympic Games in Liechenstein, I would have that right and I would take that right."

The Olympics, he reminds, "is all about medals. Fourth place doesn't interest anyone."

Which is why many who have come before them have risked it all — life, limb, spine, skull, you name it — to make their mark at the downhill, the biggest thrill ride at any Olympic Games.

It is why Austria's Toni Sailer went hellbent down the course to win at Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956, even though one of the straps on his leather boots had failed in the start area. It is why Franz Klammer looked so completely out of control — and later admitted he was — to win on his home mountain in Austria in 1976.

And it is why the same brand of fearless skiers, a couple generations removed, will leave nothing on the table when they attack the Murray Downhill course Saturday.

"The outsiders and upstarts will risk everything," says Swiss racer Didier Cuche, a 35-year-old veteran considered the favorite, despite a smashed thumb held together by screws. "Because for them, it is all or nothing."

Just as Dave Murray would have wanted it.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com

Information in this story, published Feb. 11, was corrected Feb. 12. Toni Sailer is Austrian. A previous version of this story stated he was Italian.